Last Joker
by potentialauthor18
Summary: Most mages in Fiore aspire to join a great mage's guild and make a name for themselves. To become admired and respected. This...is not one of those guilds. Last Joker is considered weak, low-key, and generally a joke when compared to other Dark Guilds. Join them as the two Guild Masters attempt to shape their underdog guild into something close to mediocrity. Accepting OC's!


**Prologue**

 **February 16, X788**

Nearly in the middle of Fiore, right outside a large mountain range and slightly northwest of Magnolia, two figures in black cloaks walked through the rundown streets of Lupinus Town, a large white and gray dog with long hair walking between them. It was practically impossible to gauge much on their appearance, since the cloaks covered them virtually from head to toe. However, it could be seen that one of them wore a pair of simple round glasses and seemed interested in their surroundings, casually looking from side to side. "Not much to look at is it? Makes me wonder if that bargain I made wasn't as lucky as I thought it was." His voice marked him as a male and he spoke with a friendly, upbeat tone. "What do you think, Sina?" He asked, directing his gaze at his partner. The dog between them had perked up at his voice; eye's covered by his long fur, before looking up towards the other person as if waiting for their answer.

Flat and emotionless, dull blue eyes were visible beneath the cowl of the cloak, along with a few long strands of gray hair that parted past the nose. Without looking back towards him, Sina answered in a slightly monotone, low voice. "Don't even try to act like that crap had anything to do with luck Rellin, you know the only luck you have is the bad kind." Despite the deepness of her voice, it was obvious that Sina was in fact a woman, one who it seemed didn't share her companion's interest in the town as she neglected to answer his question.

Laughing at her rough response, Rellin continued to scan the town as they walked through it. "That's certainly one way to compliment a person! I'm not entirely sure I'm worthy of such praise, a single wrong word and things might have ended much differently."

Growling, Sina glared at him over her black muffler. "You're one to talk. I made sure not to say a word back there and now you're making fun of me for it."

Nonchalantly patting her on the back, Rellin leaned toward her. "Okay, I'm sorry, just having a little fun with you, you know that. Now how about it, are you going to forgive me?"

With a groan, she rolled her eyes before quickly backhanding him in his open side. Coughing, Rellin fell back a few steps, clutching his sore spot. The dog stopped beside the bent over man, it's tongue hanging out as it waited for him to keep walking. "You are forgiven."

"For some reason it doesn't feel like it, although that's probably just my new bruise talking. Thanks for holding back though!" He picked up his pace to catch up to her, hand still rubbing where he was struck, the faithful canine quickly trotting up with him.

"Don't mention it."

After the trio had made their way through the town, they followed a winding, rocky path into the mountains. It wasn't very long before they stopped, having arrived at their destination. "There it is, our new home." Rellin said softly, appearing in awe of what was in front of them.

"..." Sina merely stayed silent, one of her eyebrows twitching slightly.

Before them stood a wide building, with black paint peeling along the long walls and faded yellow trim lining the roof and frames, which was likely originally gold in color. The front door was a full-size set of wooden swinging doors, rather than the standard half-size doors one would expect. However, one of the doors was only attached at one hinge, leaving it tilting slightly. The structure had a small second level that had broken windows on each end, below which was a large hanging sign, which was cracked through the middle and hung loosely by two chains. There were large letters painted on but they were so worn that it was impossible to read.

The ground level windows were in similar condition, although they were more numerous in number and nearly lined the entire front side. Stepping up the creaking stairs, they stepped onto the narrow porch that had a railing surrounding it, with pillars reaching up to support the far reaching roof. Testing the door, Rellin frowned and stepped back with a hand underneath his chin. "Hmm, that's odd, it's locked. I wonder if there's a key anywhere?" Turning around to search, he heard a crash behind him and looked over his shoulder, blinking in surprise as Sina quietly stood in the wreckage of the destroyed doors. "Or we can do it that way, not like we can really bust this place up much more than it is."

Following her into the building, Rellin noticed a coatrack beside the entrance. "No reason to wear these things anymore." He said aloud, starting to pull his hood off. This revealed a head of pure white hair, which was cut in a rough bowl cut style, aside from some slightly raggedy bangs and a cowlick in the back. He had fair skin and wide eyes behind his large glasses. His face was slightly rounded and he appeared older than he acted, a few age lines starting to show themselves on his cheeks and beneath his eyes. Smiling over at Sina, he bowed slightly and reached out a hand. "May I take your coat my lady?"

His teasing request was met with a glare before his face was smacked and covered with her cloak, leaving him frozen in that position from surprise. The dog sat down and yawned, shaking his head in an action that suspiciously looked like laughing. Sina had an angled face and tanned skin, along with a wild mane of spiky gray hair that fell down between her shoulder blades. Placing her hands on her hips, she regarded the inside of the building. The main room that they currently stood in was at a slightly lower level than the outside porch, with small sets of stairs on the left and right sides leading to the rest of the building. At the far end there was a dusty bar, behind which were multiple layers of shelves that seemed to hold only broken bottles. On both sides of the bar were a flight of stairs that seemed to lead up the second level. There was also a collection of tables that filled the center of the room, along with four more in each corner.

As Rellin hung their hoods on the rack, he paced around the room before experimentally sitting in one of the chairs. "Okay so maybe it's a bit more rundown than I was led to believe, but it's not that bad." He placed his boots on the table, to show that he was right. As if to prove him wrong instead, the chair promptly broke beneath him with a crack, which lead to him painfully landing on his back.

As he groaned in discomfort, he heard the sound of boots approaching him. Opening his eyes slightly to look up, he saw Sina and the sheep dog standing over him, a frown on her face. "Don't look at me like that, I only broke a chair, you broke both our doors."

Grabbing him by both shoulders, Sina roughly pulled him to his feet, dusting him off as she did so. "This place is a rundown shithole." She said bluntly, patting the dust out of Rellin's hair.

Chuckling, Rellin stayed still until she was satisfied with her work, sighing contently as he looked around the main room. "Well I can't argue with you there, it is in pretty terrible condition. Although that doesn't mean we can't get it fixed up."

Looking down the left wing of the building, he grinned as he saw what looked like pool tables and slot machines. "I guess it's like they said, this place used to be an old casino." Leaning up against the bar, he stared across at Sina. "So what do you think we should call it?"

"I don't really care what we call it. Besides, I'm sure you already have an idea."

Shrugging his shoulders, Rellin pushed off the bar and crossed his arms. "Well if you don't have a suggestion, I guess we'll go with mine. From now on, this place will be known as Last Joker, a dark guild for unfortunate people who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. A dark guild where it's okay to laugh, make friends, and find your place in the world." He said, spreading his arms out in an exaggerated fashion.

Apparently misinterpreting the gesture as an invitation, the dog barked loudly before jumping up and placing both heavy paws on Rellin's shoulders, putting all of his weight into it. Almost instantly, Rellin was placed on his ass for the second time in as many minutes and tried in vain to push his furry assailant off of him. "Bear, come on! I didn't mean it was hug time; get off me you big stinker!"

Instead, Bear decided to go completely limp and stared back at his owner through his long locks before giving him a final lick on the face. "Agh! You fat rug!" He yelled, grabbing the dog playfully by the head and petting him behind his ears. Groaning in bliss, the large dog seemed to have got what he wanted and finally allowed Rellin to get back to his feet.

Sina sighed, crossing her arms. "You really are an idiot sometimes. Whatever, so long as I'm the Guild Master, you can call it whatever you want."

Eyes growing big behind his glasses, Rellin pointed at her accusingly. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you just made a joke Sina! However, since I do, I know that you're being serious and I'm sorry to disappoint you but I'm going to be the Master of this guild."

Stepping closer to the slightly taller man, she raised a fist beneath his chin and cracked it menacingly. "What was that?" She said in a low voice.

Sweating slightly, Rellin placed both hands on her fist hurriedly to push it down. "Now, now, no reason to solve this with violence! How about a simple compromise?"

Raising an eyebrow, Sina gave him a contemplative stare. "What kind of compromise?"

Rellin placed his hands behind his head in a resigned fashion. "Isn't it obvious? This guild's going to have two Guild Masters."

Sina shook her head. "Never heard of such a thing."

Rellin grinned at her. "Think I'm starting to like this idea, I can already see some advantages to such an arrangement. Although I'd still like to be the sole Master, I guess we'll just have to make this work. Alright, the decision is final, from this day forward the Dark Guild Last Joker will have two Guild Masters! Victory smoke!"

Pulling out a cigarette, he excitedly lit it and took a long drag, closing his eyes contentedly. As Rellin enjoyed his smoke, Sina's eyes widened in surprise and she quickly checked her pockets to confirm her suspicions. "When did you take those back from me?" She said accusingly, her expression slowly turning to one of anger as Rellin nervously expelled a cloud of smoke.

"Now Sina. I know you're probably a little mad right now, but is this really so important when compared to an occasion..." He trailed off as she began to step menacingly towards him.

"Rellin." She growled, drawing his name out. "What did I tell you about smoking?"

Realizing his danger, Rellin began to sidle towards the doorway. "Nothing...that I haven't heard before! Time to go!" Desperately trying to finish his cigarette, he ran down the path from where they came. Sina took off after him, yelling insults all the way, followed herself by a barking Bear who seemed to think they were playing some sort of game and didn't want to be left out.

Sparing a second to stop smoking, Rellin yelled back to her over his shoulder. "I regret nothing!"

 **So basically, this story is going to focus on a light-hearted Dark Guild called Last Joker. I'm not sure if many other people have used an idea like this but I've been thinking on it for a while. I'm hoping that this catches the interest of some people and brings out some interesting ideas. This story will hopefully get me back into writing regularly, as well as working on my likely rusty writing skills. I will be posting a bio-sheet at the top of my profile for this story which will go into further detail on what I expect from OC's being submitted, so I won't bother explaining in this author's note. Since it's not so obvious at the moment, I'll make this perfectly clear. This guild is going to be sort of weak. Even the S-Class of the guild will basically be sort of average as far as strength goes. Think Phantom Lord S-Class. They had their Elemental group or whatever and while S-Class, they weren't really all that strong. So please keep in mind that most characters shouldn't be overly powerful. This means they will lose fights fairly often. Another thing, despite their unimpressive reputation, most Last Joker mages have a sense of pride for their guild.**

 **The first thing I have to say is that due to my lack of adequate experience, the number of OC's I accept probably won't be anywhere near as many as some other great OC Guild stories that you might have read. I'll probably start with around twenty and perhaps allow more later for Last Joker if I feel comfortable doing so. Another thing I should point out is that after I post this that it will probably take some time until I upload the first chapter, as the OC's that get submitted will likely decide on how soon it comes out. Lastly, I work mostly full-time and normally only have two days off a week, occasionally three. This will obviously affect my update schedule which won't be decided until I get the chapters rolling. I'd like to mirror some other author's that I follow and get a chapter out per week but we will just have to see.**

 **As a quick rule, I will only be accepting OC's through private messages. This means I won't accept any OC's in the reviews, particlarly guest reviews. If this is inconvenient to those who prefer to use the reviews, allow me to explain. Lets say I did allow OC's to be submitted through the reviews. Then everyone else already knows everything about your character, which will make them much less interesting than if you sent them directly to me. Another reason is if I have any issues with the OC or already have a character or two like that, then the only way I can respond to a guest in the reviews is by putting it in the authors note or by the reviews myself. Neither of these are convenient for me and much like the first reason, then all of that will be public knowledge. So if I have complaints, everyone will see that. If you don't have an account but have easy access to internet, it's very easy to do and shouldn't take to long. Easiest way is just to create an email of some sort and there you go. It's free, simple, and will make things much easier.**

 **Until then, this is potentialauthor18 telling you to leave me a review (advice and criticism is eagerly accepted) and perhaps drop by my profile and send an OC my way. I'll only accept them by PM and if I find anything about them that concerns me I'll make sure to explain them to you. I will be rather strict, but will try to work with you if I can. Also, if you'd like to reserve a spot or send me a general idea of your character/magic to make sure it's not taken, I'm fine with that. Nothing is worse than working hard and fleshing out a character only to find out that there is already a similar character or magic accepted. I'll try to keep the amount of OC's and other things worth mentioning updated on my profile. Until then, later!**


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